“Sad” Nancy Pelosi

The other day, Nancy Pelosi was asked about President Bush’s statement that al Qaeda is responsible for the surge of violence in Iraq. Pelosi responded that “the 9/11 Commission dismissed that notion a long time ago and I feel sad that the President is resorting to it again.” But of course the 9/11 Commission said nothing about al Qaeda’s involvement in post-invasion Iraq. Its findings pertained only to the situation under Saddam Hussein.
Had a Republican leader been this confused, the MSM would have pounced. But since it was Pelosi, the MSM did not. To the contrary, NBC’s David Gregory, who takes obnoxious exception to Bush administration comments at the drop of a hat, passed along Pelosi’s claim as if it were true, and went on to suggest that Bush’s rhetoric about al Qaeda will make it harder for Democrats to work with the White House. It seems implausible that even the Dems would decline to work with the White House on the grounds that it mentions terrorism by al Qaeda — imagine if the Republicans had refused to work with Pres. Roosevelt because he mentioned fascism — but perhaps just this once Gregory knows something we don’t.
There’s more to this story than Pelosi’s ignorance and Gregory’s bias. Whatever was the case in Saddam Hussein’s time, no serious and informed person denies that al Qaeda is present in Iraq now, and prominent in certain areas. And the Dems have said repeatedly that a primary task in the war on terror, from which we should not be diverted by “the wrong war,” is fighting al Qaeda. Under these circumstances, shouldn’t we fight al Qaeda in the portions of Iraq where it is prominent, rather than leaving these areas and handing the terrorists a victory?
That’s a question that Nancy Pelosi would rather not be asked, and that’s probably why she felt “sad” that the president brought up the subject of al Qaeda.
Via the Media Research Center’s CyberAlert.